Former Rivers State Governor and ex-Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi has said the current state of governance in Nigeria would have met firm resistance if he and Sule Lamido were still serving as state governors.

Speaking on Tuesday in Abuja at the public presentation of Lamido’s autobiography ‘Being True to Myself,’ Amaechi recalled the assertive stance the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) adopted during his tenure as chairman. Lamido was then completing his second term as Jigawa State governor.

“I asked you (Lamido) this morning, what is going on currently in the country, in Nigerian politics — would it have happened when we were governors? You said no. And the answer is no,” Amaechi said during his remarks at the book launch.

He continued: “We would have confronted the government, confronted the president. That’s how radical you were. That’s how our Governors Forum operated. That’s how determined we were to change things.”

Amaechi reflected on his political alliance with Lamido, particularly during debates on how best to counter the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan. He said they ultimately parted ways over their differing views on political strategy.

“We were quite good friends in government. We had our bad times when we disagreed. I made the mistake of assuming he was as radical as I was. So, he was one of the governors I clung to when it came to radical decisions,” he said.

He recounted, “The last one before we broke ranks was when we all agreed to go against President Jonathan. We formed a committee of governors and others. At the end of the day, he went to find a new party, the SDP. We said, ‘If we go to the SDP, we will lose the election. Let’s hang on to this one called the APC.’ He disagreed and left us. That’s where we parted ways.”